Kaitlyn Chow                                                                           November 18, 2014
ELA Blogpost #5                                                                                               812

Nonfiction Reading Response

Upfront Magazine

            The article I have picked is called, "Guess Who's Looking At Your Facebook Page?" by Alessandra Potenza. The article is about how you should start being more cautious about what you post on things like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram because colleges look at them to help consider whether or not they want you in their school. Colleges aren't the only ones who scout social media to consider you, but managers at the job you are applying to look at it as well. They look to see your personality. They don't want people who post inappropriate things or insults because they want a good student/employee and they judge that partially based on their social media. The article wants the reader to be aware that they are being viewed by colleges or job managers to consider them because the author has realized that, "what you post online can have real consequences." An example of this was given in the article when a girl from Findlay, Ohio posted a complaint about the small tips from customers on Facebook. Her managers were notified about it throughout one of her Facebook friends, and she was fired. This person was included in the article because it was an example about how Facebook posts can really matter, and you should be cautious about what you say. 

            The author wants the reader to be amazed that colleges and managers really do look you up on Google to help determine whether or not they want to accept you. The author wants to make you feel like you should be careful about what you post, because it can determine your future. If the job  you're applying to sees that you post appropriate, positive things they are more likely to consider you than if you posted inappropriate things. It's almost as if the author is warning the reader by pointing out multiple consequences you can get for posting inappropriate things. As stated in the article, "more than 90 percent of (jobs) recruiters check candidates' social media profiles." The author gives numbers numbers to give the reader an idea of how many people actually check your profile so you can see how many people are actually serious about it.

            This article has changed my thinking because I feel like now I am aware that posting things can change my future, I want to be more cautious about it. I've decided that because I can post positive things, I will. I can make the choice not to post inappropriate things, so I won't.

Citation

Potenza, Alessandra. "Guess Who's Looking At Your Facebook Page." October 6, 2014. Upfront Magazine. November 14, 2014. <http://upfront.scholastic.com/>

Kaitlyn Chow
November 6, 2014
ELA 812

Book Response

Looking For Alaska by John Green

          Smoking and cursing are things people frown upon, however, the book Looking For Alaska contains these things. Looking For Alaska by John Green is about Miles, who goes to high school and adopts bad habits such as smoking, cursing and breaking multiple rules. This book should be banned because although it does show a lot about the value of friendship, it contains many examples of rule breaking, bad influences and inappropriate issues.

          Drinking becomes a main habit in the book, and they do it for fun and act like it’s cool to do it, and that it’s no big deal. This an incredibly bad influence on the readers of the book because they are getting drunk by underage drinking and that is a horrible example to set. They play drinking games and sometimes turn to alcohol to reduce stress, like when Alaska died. An example of this is when Miles goes to Takumi for alcohol after Alaska dies. He says, “Do you have any alcohol?” and Takumi asks why. In response, Colonel says, “Uh, because we want to get drunk?” as if it were so obvious. This quote shows how easily the Colonel and Miles are around alcohol, and they don’t take drinking as a serious thing. 

           In the book, there are also many times when they smoke. Most of the time, Alaska is the one to influence them to smoke. She sometimes supplies them with cigarettes. “So, Alaska. Sell us some cigarettes,” the Colonel says on page 15. They depend on Alaska a lot, and she’s mainly the one who’s influenced them to this sad life of drinking, smoking, breaking curfew, cursing and setting pranks. This was also an example of them breaking rules because it was against the rules to smoke on campus, yet they still did it.

          Miles has changed throughout the book, and he’s definitely not the same person as he was when he first started going to Culver Creek high school. Before he attended this school, he never experienced the feeling of drinking alcohol or smoking. It’s described so the reader can infer that his parents were considered overprotective of Miles, and this is part of the reason why he felt like he was bad when first doing these things. As Miles says in the book, “I swallowed hard, and there, yes I did it. I was drinking on campus.” From this quote I can tell that Miles felt accomplished in this action because he’s never done something as rebellious as that. He felt like he was now cool and was even a bit shocked, proud even. Most of them reason why Miles did all these things was because Miles was peer pressured into it. The environment that John Green created for Miles affected him in a bad way, and he is now a bad influence.

          Banning this book would be the right thing to do because of the inappropriate issues. Looking For Alaska can relate to readers because by reading this text, they might think that these things are okay to do in their lives. However, the actions in this book should not be copied because underaged drinking and drunk driving is illegal. In addition, drunk driving puts others in danger as well. Also, smoking is brought up a lot in the book, and I feel like you shouldn’t smoke because it’s one of the worlds top killers. Looking For Alaska does not set good examples and should be banned for it’s inappropriate content.